0 for 2…Investing with My Father in Law.

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  • on September 5th, 2011

I went with my son Max and my father-in-law (Leon) to the Padres game. Actually it was my friend GameTruckLA, who took us all.

I was very careful to not talk investments or the market. We did talk gold $GLD because I know my father in law has been hoarding it. I know he has been right so would enjoy talking about it. A great ice breaker for son-in-laws worldwide (talk about something you know they killed it in). I told him I have not owned it for the last $400 and good for him. I asked him how and where he plans to sell it. He said when it gets to $6,000. I have been wrong so I did not offer any opinion. I did ask him if the ICEE guy or the popcorn guy would take his bold bar or necklace as payment at gold $6,000. He said yes but likely with a 20 percent haircut. I can’t quite picture it and I doubt he has heard of Square so I told him to unfollow me on twitter and follow Keith Rabois I started to drink beer. Note to self and @jack - $Square would be cool for old people if could slide gold bars through it.

My father-in Law does not quite know what I do. He asks a lot. So does my mother -in law. Usually at family events that their friends attend and a lot of pointing happens. I am the black skheep. There are 5 lawyers and 2 doctors. Because there have been a few manias and bubbles over the course of my first 20 years in the money business, a few family events have occured during market peaks. In early 2001, Leon asked me what I did and I likely said I own internet stocks. In just a few minutes time, so did he. He wanted to be in Cars Direct with me. Painfully, that took 11 years of reporting before he lost 90 percent of his money.

In 2006, he called to ask about Cars Direct and I gave him the update (goner). For some reason he asked what I did again. I said stocks, mostly $aapl, and some hard money lending. I think he had an IBM thinkpad and did not watch Wallstrip, so he invested in one of our loans. That land somehow became the epicenter of the Scottsdale credit bubble. A complete goosegg.

0 for 2.

There is no lesson here other than my father has been a good sport about these losses. If I did not like him, I would have offered up that I was buying gold by the boatload with Rachel’s Bat Mitzvah money, but I am just too nice a guy.

We plan on going to the Apple store tomorrow so he can buy Rachel an iPad for her Bat Mitzvah. It just might be time to sell $aapl.

Happy Labor Day.

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